A dynamic duet for ' Austin City Limits'

By joining forces, the festival and the television show have become one formidable music mix

By Michael Corcoran
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, September 21, 2009

Originally published September 17, 2004

On the opening day of the first Austin City Limits Music Festival at Zilker Park in September 2002, Terry Lickona was chatting with a couple in their early 20s who noticed his all-access badge and asked him what his connection was to the fest. Lickona told them he has produced " Austin City Limits," the PBS staple, since 1977.

"There's a TV show, too?" the young woman asked.

Two years ago, the nation's longest-running music program wasn't reaching many younger viewers and was saddled with the perception that it was a show for aging folkies and country fans. But soon after the instant success of the hip music festival that bears its name, the show's parent station, KLRU, began talking with the festival promoters, Capital Sports & Entertainment, about becoming more involved in the TV show.

The show needed help with underwriting and branding. CSE principals Bart Knaggs, Bill Stapleton and Charlie Jones wanted to take it even further.

"Basically, they wanted us to be sales guys," says Knagg, "and we told them that we weren't interested in selling something that we weren't responsible for." A month before the second ACL Fest, it was announced that CSE, which had little television experience, would co-produce the 30th anniversary season of " Austin City Limits," which began taping in April.

A "stunned" Lickona had been totally unaware of the negotiations between KLRU and CSE and was notified only after the deal was done. "They guaranteed five years of funding," Lickona says. "That was huge." After decades of trying to keep the KLRU flagship afloat, Lickona was willing to set aside his wounded pride.

But months after the announcement, things were still chilly between the two entities, Knaggs says. He credits a dinner in Washington, where " Austin City Limits" became the first television show to win a National Medal of Arts award in November, with breaking the ice.

"Terry wasn't talking. You could sense some resentment," Knaggs says. "We were marketing guys to him . . . so finally I asked him, 'What's your wish list for the show?' and he started talking about all these ideas he had, and they were great. I thought, 'Here's a guy who wants to get some cool stuff done, and we can help him.' " The dialogue had started a collaboration Lickona refers to as "a work in progress."

As the total attendance at ACL Fest has grown each year — from 77,000 in 2002 to 155,000 last year and a projected 225,000 this weekend (75,000 a day) — so has the relationship between the namesake TV show and the concert event. There will be no question that this year's festival has a TV counterpart, as cameras will be everywhere. Sheryl Crow's set tonight and Trey Anastasio's show Saturday will be shot for upcoming "ACL" segments, plus the three-day event will be captured for a DVD to be released by Warner Music in December.

Just four years after parent station KLRU was forced to seek a bank loan to keep the program alive, the " Austin City Limits" brand is hotter than ever. Several classic "ACL" tapings have been licensed to New West Records, which will launch the "Live From Austin, Texas" series of DVDs and CDs with sets from Steve Earle, Robert Earl Keen, the Flatlanders and Susan Tedeschi on Nov. 2. The Los Angeles-based label, which operates an Austin branch, released a live CD from last year's fest, and it will record this one as well.

The future promises even more, including a new, highly visible home for " Austin City Limits" — which has never even been allowed to hang a sign outside its University of Texas digs — at one of several potential downtown locations. The city has said it will consider incentives for developments that include offices for KLRU and a venue for " Austin City Limits" in their plans.

"People in Austin who'd never seen the value of ' Austin City Limits' saw it firsthand with the festival," says Mary Beth Rogers, who recently retired from her post as CEO of KLRU. "After 28 years, we became an overnight success."

The maiden year, the program merely lent its name in return for a percentage of ticket sales, which added just over $100,000 to KLRU coffers. But now, representatives of KLRU sit in at music fest production meetings, and you'll find CSE's Jones in the control room during "ACL" tapings.

Lickona still scouts the talent, but now he must go through a committee that includes ACL Fest booker Charles Attal and Jones and George Couri of CSE. All four must agree on each booking. The two entities have become intertwined, to the mutual benefit of each, says new KLRU CEO Bill Stotesbery. "It was all the goodwill from 'ACL' that set up the festival's success, which in turn has given the show's profile an incredible boost," he says.

The ties were especially tight Thursday night when KLRU held its annual fund-raising gala, starring Sheryl Crow, at Zilker Park the day before the official concert kickoff. While workers put the finishing touches on the other seven stages that ring Austin's recreational jewel, Crow, in tight, fringed bellbottoms, and her band played for about 1,500 folks who paid as much as $500 a ticket. The performance opened with "If It Makes You Happy" and "C'mon C'mon" as Crow's boyfriend Lance Armstrong played with his three young children in the wings.

It was recorded and will be edited together with tonight's show on a segment of the 30th anniversary season of "ACL," which begins airing Oct. 2 with a set from John Fogerty. With the park's Rock Island lighted up as the backdrop, Crow's set will look like none other in the show's history.

Yet change comes slowly in public television. "For all its strengths, PBS is a bureaucracy," says Rogers. "You don't have the flexibility to take risks. Then along come these go-getters from CSE and, yeah, there was a little bit of a cultural clash in the beginning. We had to move faster to keep up, and they had to adjust somewhat to our way of doing things."

The main change this upcoming season is a new opening montage — and a fresh theme song from Charlie Sexton —capping an intensive re-education program that sent KLRU communications head Maury Sullivan and CSE's Lisa Schickel to 16 major PBS affiliates across the country the past few months. The message: Just as the ACL Fest mixes the cutting edge (Pixies, Franz Ferdinand, Modest Mouse this year) with such adult alternative mainstays as Ben Harper, Patty Griffin and Shelby Lynne, the TV show's bookings are moving in similarly diverse directions.

"The perception of 'ACL' was rooted in the '70s," says Knaggs. "There's always been a lot of reverence for the show; our goal is to give it revelance without disturbing the reverence."

The word seems to be getting out. For the first time in more than a decade, "ACL" will air on WNET, New York City's PBS affiliate.

"I pitched them hard about 10 years ago," Lickona says, "and the programmer said their typical audience member was a 50-year-old Jewish woman from New York City. He said, 'Now why would she want to watch a country music show from Texas?' "

For the upcoming 30th anniversary season, not a single country performer has been booked. Instead, viewers will see such acts as the Pixies, who also play the fest Saturday, Flaming Lips and Ozomatli. But Knaggs is quick to point out that the show's reputation for "quality music" will remain intact, even as the boundaries have expanded.

"We want to attract younger audiences, but not at the expense of three decades of integrity," he says.

CSE got an early taste of what KLRU has been up against all those years when one of the show's major underwriters, Schlotzsky's, filed for bankruptcy and pulled its sponsorship. CSE is currently looking for another underwriter to join SBC, the Austin Convention Center and Anheuser-Busch in funding the current anniversary season of "ACL." If they can't find another sponsor, the money will have to come out of CSE's pocket.

CSE has brought in major improvements in sound and lighting to Studio 6A, where "ACL" is taped.

Still, the show has retained its unpretentious charm and good vibe chemistry between artists and fans. There are still "only in Austin" moments, such as a recent taping of the Shins, which was held up for almost 45 minutes because the free beer, an "ACL" staple, hadn't arrived. A staffer was dispatched to Junior's for a couple of kegs, and when the set finally got under way, one of the Shins joked that it was the first time he'd heard of a TV show delayed because of a beer run.

" ' Austin City Limits' has come to mean more than a TV show, more than a music festival," says Stotesbery. "It stands for a pure, honest approach to music. That's why the festival and the TV show go hand in hand. The experiences are totally different — one's outside with 75,000 fans; one's in a studio with a capacity of 320. But the musical objective is the same."

mcorcoran@statesman.com; 445-3652

Moments in 'ACL' history

1974: Bill Arhos, program director of local PBS affiliate KLRU, writes a proposal to do a live music show from Austin and receives $13,000 from PBS to produce the pilot.

1975: ' Austin City Limits' premieres, featuring Willie Nelson as the first guest. (The show was taped Oct. 17, 1974.) The show is aired by 34 PBS affiliates.

1977: Gary P. Nunn's 'London Homesick Blues' is chosen as the 'ACL' theme song. Terry Lickona becomes the show's producer.

1979: The show's booking range expands to include such diverse acts as Tom Waits and Lightnin' Hopkins.

1980: Ray Charles becomes the first million-selling R&B/pop star to play 'ACL.'

1982: The Austin skyline backdrop, which has fooled many TV viewers into believing the show is taped outdoors, is introduced.

1987: Lyle Lovett makes his first of many appearances on the show. An audience shot of Lovett attending a previous show is edited in as a joke.

1990: Stevie Ray Vaughan makes his last appearance on 'ACL' in a 50th birthday salute to W.C. Clark. Budweiser drops out as major underwriter.

1998: 'ACL' is dropped from 30 percent of its 300 PBS affiliates when it starts charging for the programming. The show goes back to being free the next year and is picked up by 98 percent of the PBS stations.

2001: Riding the local economic boom, 'ACL' doubles the number of tapings, from 13 to 26, and attracts Agillion as its main sponsor. But when the high-tech company goes bankrupt, the show finishes in the red.

2002: 'ACL' owner KLRU lends the show's name to Capital Sports & Entertainment to create the Austin City Limits Music Festival. Promoters pray for 30,000 fans a day; more than 42,000 show up on the first day of the two-day event.

2003: 'ACL' becomes the first TV show to receive the National Medal of Arts award, presented by President Bush in the Oval Office. The fest extends to three days. CSE is hired to co-produce the 30th anniversary season with Lickona.

2004: For the annual KLRU gala fund-raiser, Sheryl Crow becomes the first act to tape an episode of " Austin City Limits" on an ACL Fest stage. Warner Music is set to film the three-day event for a DVD release.